Cardinal O’Malley’s Dumb Question: So Who is Obsessed?

On the pope’s comments about the Church needing to move away from its “obsession” with talks on abortion, gays and contraception:

“The normal Catholic in the parish might hear a sermon on abortion once a year. They’ll never hear a sermon on homosexuality or gay marriage. They’ll never hear a sermon about contraception. But if you look at the New York Times, in the course of a week, there will be 20 articles on those topics. So who is obsessed?

“So who is obsessed?” Really? Think about the dynamics of the worldwide gay marriage debate.

Look, if you’re harming a group of people, or advocating harm to them, it’s not “obsession” that causes them to ask you to stop, even if they ask it every day. It’s not “obsession” that causes their friends to tell you to lay off. On the other hand, if you loudly assert your right to keep harming them, even though harming them doesn’t benefit you one bit, they absolutely have the right to call you obsessed—even if you only speak up once or twice a year.